It’s always very dangerous as a sports fan to have the expectation that your team should win a championship. In fact it makes the postseason so stressful at times, you may find yourself stuck on that lucky spot on the couch or you’ll pace up and down your living room just to get the W.

For many years, championships are what you expected out of the Yankees. After winning four championships in five years, the bar was set so unreasonably high by Joe Torre’s bunch.

That is why come the early 2000’s, Yankee fans couldn’t stomach losing in the postseason. Even after let’s say a 100-win campaign, if you didn’t win it all, it was unacceptable.

The Rangers find themselves in a similar predicament here this spring. Anything less than a parade down the Canyon of Heroes will be viewed as a colossal disappointment.

Unlike the Yankees, the Rangers have not had the success as far as winning championships over the last couple of years, but they have been knocking on the door.

The Rangers have played in the Eastern Conference Finals three out of the last four years, they’ve won their share of big games, they’ve given their fans plenty to cheer about, but they haven’t held up Lord Stanley’s Cup since a guy by the name of Messier did it in 1994.

Last year, even after losing in the Cup Finals to the LA Kings, there was a lot to feel good about as a Rangers fan. The team showed guts rallying from down three games to one against the Penguins in the second round; they rallied around their teammate Martin St. Louis who had to deal with the loss of his mother; and the team played well in defeat against the eventual champion.

However, when you’ve been building to a certain point, the expectation is that sooner rather than later you are going to get over the hump. The Ranger fan expects this team to get over the hump.

The Rangers are a gritty, hard-nosed team with four talented lines featuring a great group of defensemen, and a coach who has made deep runs in the playoffs with multiple teams in Alain Vigneault.

Of course, they have the best goaltender in the NHL in Henrik Lundqvist, a net minder who has one of the best records in Game 7’s in the history of the sport .

The one thing that eludes “The King” is the Stanley Cup. Lundqvist has accomplished everything you could possibly accomplish in the sport with the exception of winning it all.

The King needs this cup, this team needs this cup, the fan base needs this cup. I don’t want to hear about the great comeback against the Capitals, I don’t want to hear about the President's Cup trophy.

In order to validate this season, there had better be a parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Anything less is a failure. Case closed.